


Mutiny

by Broba



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Other, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-31 20:25:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broba/pseuds/Broba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rabble of prisoners- collectively known as the scum- are the outcasts and unwanted of Alternian society. Thrown together in appalling conditions, and expected to die quickly and quietly...</p><p> </p><p>I couldn't resist this prompt on the kinkmeme just because it reminded me of Blake's 7, a remarkably dark and horrifying British sci-fi series which was basically Star Trek with fascism and the ultimate downer ending. Ho ho ho aren't I a cheerful one?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_We are all caged, whether the walls are steel, the limits of the horizon or the furthest reached of the galaxy's span, or even the walls of our own skulls we are all prisoners. We are all caged. All that changes is how we respond to our incarceration._  
  
They were marched forcibly into the main loading area of the vessel that was to be their transport and prison, and told to line up along the length of a white painted strip on the steel flooring. They were all dejected, broken and weak. They were dressed in a shabby assortment of prison jumpsuits, rags or whatever they had managed to cobble together. Most of them went bare-foot. They were the newest prisoner intake, but they had already learned that pain was their constant companion and any hint of disobedience would be punished brutally.  
  
The guard formed up in a small group in front of them, hands casually placed on their weapons, masked visages blank and impersonal. Across the loading bay came the sound of weak struggling and a pitiable cry. A prisoner was being dragged out, not one of the new intake, a veteran. The miserable wretch was little more then skin and bones, and was dumped unceremoniously to the floor where they could all see, and he began to weep softly. The commandant of the ship, an large, thick-set troll with the bright plastic of his uniform burnished to a perfect sheen, stepped neatly out to come to attention in front of the new prisoners.  
"You," he announced without preamble, "are worthless to me. My ship is consigned to ship goods and manufacturing parts around the empire. That is my purpose and my task, one which I shall carry out to the letter as is my duty." He paused and leered unpleasantly. "You, are not my duty. As social nonadjusts you have no place in the real world, and so you are dumped into my neat little world. And you are unwelcome! Make no mistake, you are not wanted here! If it were not more expensive to have robots perform the general maintenance duties required, believe me you would never set foot on my beloved perfect vessel, is that clear?"  
None of the prisoners said anything. They knew better. Suddenly the commandant drew his pistol, and that got their attention.  
"You are worthless! You are meaningless! Your lives will be short and your deaths will be nothing more then a number in my log! I receive no payment for shipping or feeding you, I am under no duty to look after you! I will now demonstrate this point graphically."  
  
He cocked his pistol, placed the muzzle against the head of the prisoner cowering at his feet. The male was petrified, and began pleading and begging. The commandant squeezed the trigger and the pistol made the dull _crump_ of a subsonic bolt, and the prisoner collapsed. Aside from a perfect black circle on his forehead, he looked like nothing had happened. He stared ahead blankly, there was barely any blood. The pistol was low powered, unable to penetrate machinery or walls, but perfectly capable of ruining flesh.  
  
"That troll stole. I have no particular malice towards him, but my rules are clear. I will punish only once, and then kill. It makes no difference to me that this troll is not going to make the trip, nor will I be questioned on my methods by Control! Have I made myself clear to you scum?"  
As one, the prisoners murmured assent. It was an unnecessary demonstration but a very effective one. A guard hauled the body away to be recycled and disposed. There would be no more speeches on the matter. The commandant didn’t even bother introducing himself, although they later learned that his name was Lewton. They were herded into a long dormitory together, there weren't enough beds for all of them but they were expected to work that out for themselves. They had been provided with the very minimum that the law demanded for nonadjusts, and beyond this they were simply not of concern. If they caused trouble it was nothing to punish them or kill them, if they obeyed then it was not for any reward beyond another miserable day to live. The life of nonadjusts was notoriously short, and the dreaded "NA" mark on the personal file was considered to be as good as a death sentence, if less merciful.  
  
When the door was locked and bolted they were finally alone, except for the constantly roving automatic sensor in the corner that calmly watched everything they did to be relayed to the main computer brain. The prisoners clustered together around a ceiling grate which was the only source of (reasonably) fresh warm air into the room, there was a spot in the middle of the floor that was closest to room temperature and they shared it. Already the strongest or meanest prisoners had claimed the bunks nearest to the spot.  
  
There were thirty of them in all, though as the days went on that number began to diminish and the awful logic of their dormitory began to make sense- before long they would have room to spare. The scum, they were called. Whenever a foul or dangerous job needed doing aboard ship, inevitably the order would be given to drag up one of the scum to do it. They learned to maintain the machinery of the vessel; mostly their work consisted of cleaning out and repairing the waste and food recycling systems. As these systems were basically a network of pipes and filters that were regularly exposed to oils and organic fats, they became clogged most easily and the job of doing something about it would always fall to the scum.  
  
They were all nonadjusts. Had they been simple criminals then they would have been terminated neatly, but their only crime as such was to be judged incapable of operating in normal society for whatever reason. In practice this meant that they were a bunch of mutants, cast-offs and addicts who would never be able to pull their lives together. The merciful and all-controlling State therefore judged that as nonadjusts they would service the needs of society forcibly, until their either expired or were granted Imperial Reprieve. In fact, Imperial Reprieve was almost never given, to anyone.  
  
Two of them were mucking out one of the main atmosphere shafts. The wide-bored tubes spread down the length of the ship and were large enough for two of the scum to walk down them side by side. Their task was to use heavy detergents to clean the walls of the shaft, which in time became clogged and filthy with debris and waste picked up in the air system. Mostly bits of food, hair, oils, anything that the ubiquitous air vents might pick up. The shafts were where the various gases that made their breathing mixture were combined, heated humidified and dispersed around the ship and if infection mould were allowed to grow in there it could compromise the crew.  
  
Gamzee whistled through his teeth as he sauntered along the shaft, spraying his side with a long metal wand that was connected to a tank on his back by a hose. Nothing seemed to get him down, and that made him both popular and suspect among the other prisoners.  
"Fuck, man," said Gamzee, "these fumes are goin' to get me so fuckin high!"  
"Wear your mask," replied Equius beside him, "that's why they gave you one."  
"Fuck no, brother! Why you think I'm breathin' in all the goodness?"  
As always the limited conversation eventually turned to the one and only subject that the prisoners had to discuss- the past. They had no future, and the present was not worth contemplating.  
"Why are you even here?" Equius asked,"it's obvious you're not like the others."  
"How so, man?"  
"Well, to be blunt about it," Equius coughed into his mask discreetly, "you are clearly highblooded. I can tell from your stature and your accent, when you are not trying to hide it."  
"Shit yo, I didn't even want it to be a thing! You got to promise not to tell no-one!"  
"They will discover for themselves I am sure. Sooner or later we all bleed."  
Gamzee sighed and squirted a particularly fluffy area of mould. "Yeah I guess." He stopped and looked over at Equius who had halted respectfully, "not that it matters. I guess I got high a bit too often. They watch you, all the time, when you're a highblood. I figure, someone decided I didn't make the fuckin' cut."  
"I see. That is. Unfortunate."  
"What about you?"  
"I was a soldier. I found myself unable to complete my mission."  
"I thought they fuckin' culled you in the army when you don't do as you're told?"  
"Yes, usually." Equius remained silent on that point, and got back to his work. Gamzee just shrugged and took in a deep cleansing breath. It wasn't much, but the fumes sure took the edge off.  
  
Deep in the bowels of the ship was an area referred to as The Mine. It was so called because it was only accessible through a network of catwalks with caged walls that were reminiscent of mine shafts. The catwalks looped around enormous columns of cargo, and at the bottom was the blackest, stillest place aboard. Deep in The Mine the darkness seemed so absolute that when you turned off your lamp- and everyone tried it once- you were blind in a more absolute way then being in a merely darkened room.  
  
Tavros limped awkwardly around the base of a cargo column, running his light over the containers. They had to be checked at regular intervals for signs of decay or compromise, even though a thousand checks might have been done previously if a thousand more were on the requirement list then that was what had to be done- and the scum had to do it.  
"Uh," He called, "alpha nine, stack three, uh, sorry no stack four, one to twenty is clear."  
"Well is it stack three or four?"  
"I think it was three."  
"You think? You think?"  
From behind him, Sollux emerged from behind the stack, waving the hand console he had been typing into.  
"We've been here three fucking hours! Ith it three or four?"  
"Th-three."  
"Are you sure? Thith ith important, you fucker!"  
"I'm sure!" He squeaked and held up his hands, obviously expecting to be hit. Sollux just sneered at him and marked the console.  
"Fine. Look, I'm putting it in. Thtack three. And if you got it wrong, then it'th your ath on the line, idiot."  
Tavros just nodded sullenly, and with a mechanical grinding sound brought his legs around to face the other direction. He could move in straight lines well enough, but turning was an issue for him.  
Sollux tapped on his console irritably, but with efficiency that showed he really knew what he was doing. Tavros just stood and waited patiently. He could stand rigidly still for extended periods without tiring, which took a little getting used to.  
"So, uh-hm," Tavros began, "what are you here, you know, for?"  
Sollux grimaced and snapped his fingers, "Make yourself useful and break out the breathing gas, the air is getting worse."  
In The Mine the air had poor circulation and stagnated rapidly. In theory the whole place was pressurised like the rest of the ship for the good of the cargo, but the air down there stank and air masks were needed for extended work. Tavros helped Sollux with his mask then just stood there, staring up at the columns.  
"I never did anything," Tavros murmured, "I mean, that's what was wrong with me. I never did anything so they said I was no good."  
Sollux grunted, "thoundth about right."  
  
They went a little way further into The Mine, Tavros lit the way with his lamp while Sollux just stared at the readout of his console in moody silence. He looked up when he heard the rhythmic clank of Tavros' footsteps halt, and they examined the next stack to be inspected.  
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Sollux breathed, "would you read off the number up there?"  
"Uh, three."  
"That'th right. Thtack three. Which meanth everythign I jutht entered ith wrong."  
"Uhm."  
Sollux just stared at him. Tavros didn't like how still and calm he seemed.  
"You fucking wathte of _thkin,_ " said Sollux. "You fucking wathte. What'th even wrong with you? Were you jutht born wrong?"  
"Hey I'm... I'm sorry, I thought I... I was sure," Tavros started to stammer.  
"Well you weren't fucking thure, were you?" Sollux sneered mockingly, "I gueth you're, uh, jutht, uh, thtupid or thome, uh, thing."  
"Stop,"  
"Shut the fuck up! I'll tell you when you can fucking thpeak to me again! I can't fucking hear your fucking thtammer right now you're giving me a headache."  
"Sollux please," he was cringing now, as far as it was possible with his nearly rigid legs, "I didn't mean to get it wrong,"  
"But you fucking did get it wrong, you fuck! You fucked up and thingth have conthequentheth!"  
  
Tavros just stared at him. In the dim lamplight his round face was a dull glow as Sollux rounded on him. Sollux stared down at him, his head canted to one side like a narrow predatory bird staring at prey.  
"What are you going to do?" Tavros whispered.  
"I'm going to thurvive," said Sollux, "one day at a time. And if thomeone get'th in the way I'll remove them."  
"I... I won't..."  
"Shut up."  
Tavros' mouth snapped shut.  
"Lithen. From now on I want you to jutht do what I thay. Don't think about it, and don't argue. Jutht do ath I tell you."  
Tavros was silent.  
"Underthtand?"  
"I... yes. Sorry."  
"Come on."  
  
They walked around the stack in silence. Tavros contemplated the shipping containers and studiously kept his eyes off Sollux, who was keeping himself busy with lines of data.  
  
"Sollux?"  
"What."  
"Uh,"  
"What?"  
"How did you get to be an NA? If you don't mind, me asking, uh, I'm sorry for asking if you do mind."  
"You remember I thaid I wath going to thurvive?"  
"Uhm."  
"Dethiding you'll do what it taketh to thurvive apparently ith enough to make you unacctheptable." Sollux ran his lower lip over his teeth thoughtfully for a moment, looking up into the gloom, "I made a mithcalculation, that'th all."  
"That doesn't seem like much."  
"It doethn't take much."  
  
They moved on.


	2. Chapter 2

The vessel was named _Agostine_ and had a regular route that took it from the core of the empire to the very fringes. it was one of thousands like it, haulers responsible for the flow of vital goods and resources needed to keep the empire running as it should. She was half again as long as she was wide and bristled with attachment points, irregular bulges and blocky, polygonal extrusions that had been assembled over time as she was refitted and repurposed without end.  
  
the ship was alone in an infinite sea of ink, even the stars were dim. There was no sensation of motion or speed, to the crew it was a lonely wandering world cut off from anything living in the universe. Lewton ran a tight ship, _Agostine_ taught the crew discipline and Lewton taught them fear. Whether regular crew, enlistees or NA prisoners, the occupants all knew that Lewton's word was law and any infraction either real or arbitrarily decided upon a whim could be punished endlessly. Death was nothing to Lewton, he surrounded himself with morbidity. He never lost an opportunity to make it known that he welcomed it, and wished that he could have a kill every day. If he hadn't been a figure of horror he might almost have seemed excessive and theatrical in his constant need to grind into his entire crew the futility and briefness of their lives.  
  
The scum worked endlessly. They technically had duty shifts, however they were roused from their bunks at will and dragged to any part of the ship to be set on any errand. Soon it was impossible to keep any real track of time, with no proper sleep schedule and the constant threat of yet another laborious, boring or lethal task to be done. Soon, their numbers began to decline as one by one the prisoners succumbed to accidents or even in two cases summary execution. After a period of time that might have been a week, or might have been three or four weeks, they all had a bunk to themselves most of the time.  
  
They talked in small groups, when they had some blessed peace. All except Sollux, who was incredibly withdrawn to the extent that he seemed to just go to another place when he was in their dormitory. He would respond to Tavros, usually angrily, though. Sometimes Tavros would come to him with a dish of the gruel they were served on most mealtimes, and he would accept a bowl. Otherwise, he would often simply do without.  
  
There were only two females in their group, and they always were together. Terezi was a former judicial officer who was now blinded- the punishment for failing to uphold the proper ethical processes of her position, as she put it. Unable to continue in her role following the punishment of blinding she had been made an NA, as it was judged that she had no ability to contribute productively to society. She was, therefore, not expected to live. She accepted this bleak outlook with equanimity however, and a refusal to be cowed by her highly reduced stature. In fact she would certainly not have survived except that the mutant Kanaya stayed with her, always. Kanaya had sickly white skin, the outward sign of some mutation that made her unacceptable. She had been an NA for the longest of any of them, and had managed to survive simply by cloaking herself in silence and remaining unseen. Whenever Terezi was set to a task she would do as much as she could manage, but Kanaya would quietly follow and help her, to the extend of doing enough work for the both of them. If Lewton knew of their arrangement he ignored it, or more likely it amused him to see Kanaya work herself to death in a futile quest to keep a doomed blind girl alive.  
  
Terezi sat bolt upright in bed, eating carefully from her bowl of gruel. Kanaya was beside her and occasionally helped her, making sure she didn't miss any. When Kanaya had adopted Terezi as a personal responsibility she hadn't said anything about it, that anyone had been around to hear, but had simply slipped into her role as caregiver and support. Terezi had been proud, before her fall, and her fixed smile was brittle and wan. Terezi nodded to indicate she'd had enough, and Kanaya discreetly passed her a rag with which to dab her lips.  
  
At first, the usual tensions had risen as the prisoners began tentatively to reveal their blood colours, with a few notable exceptions, but the brutality of their daily life crushed any sense of decorum from them. The NA's were all of one uniform type in the self contained world they occupied, and none were considered remotely better then the others. In a strange way, it was liberating for them. They were free to examine each other's personal qualities on an equal footing and make judgements on what they saw instead of what they had been preconditioned to believe. As harsh as the life of an NA was, they all found themselves bonded together in a tight knit group, if only to protect themselves from their oppressors.  
  
In the corner, Karkat watched them. He habitually wrapped himself in one of the thin blankets while they were in the dormitory, he was always cold. The early bickering over the warm part of the room had given way to a sullen realisation that there would never be enough warmth for them and it was pointless to jockey for position. He didn't like to talk, but he would chatter endlessly if one of the others made the effort and spoke to him first. He had been the runt, the smallest and weakest of them, but through sheer ferocious will and gumption he had endured when bigger, stronger trolls had failed and died. The others had shunned him at first, but gradually as the atmosphere in their group became all the more despondent, his willingness to talk became a unique asset. He would never push himself on others or speak first, yet they knew that when they needed to let something out he would listen patiently and shout with them, cry with then, commiserate and stay with them as long at they needed him to. He had a corner of the dormitory to himself and by unspoken assent, when any of them wandered over to Karkat's corner they others left them alone in as much privacy as the place made possible.  
  
The _Agostine_ made good time, and as they pulled laboriously away from the orbit of an angry looking ruddy colony world the crew knew that they were entering the Long Leg. The part of their voyage that would be the most arduous for them. The _Agostine_ would spend most of the next sweep, by Alternian time, traversing the spiral arm toward their distant destination at the edges of the empire. Delivering a full load of finished goods and returning along a complicated route taking in a network of worlds, gradually filling up on raw materials to feed back into the core, the _Agostine_ would fulfil her primary function circulating the needful things of the empire along the stellar routes.  
  
After three weeks of local ship time they had engaged the grinding engines that threw the _Agostine_ past the light barrier, at her grudging curmudgeonly pace.  
  
The nonadjusts gathered in their dormitory, looking down in horror at what lay before them. It was Karkat, and he looked half dead. The little troll had got onto Lewton's bad side, somehow, at last.  
"Look at the blood," said Equius in a dull voice.  
"Fuck," Gamzee crouched and ran a finger over Karkat's back where his jumpsuit had been torn by the whip. "What even happened?"  
"I saw it," said Tavros quietly, "it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't his fault what happened. I was repairing a gasket seat but I hadn't... I didn't tighten a bolt enough and the seal ruptured and blew out. Lewton heard about it when the repair crews came down to check it and I told him," Tavros swallowed hard, his fists shaking with emotion, "I said it was my fault! I owned up, I did! And Karkat tried to tell them to go easy on me..."  
That explained enough. Talking back to Lewton- talking to Lewton at all- was a grave offence.  
"Shit bro," Gamzee sighed, "why'd he want to do a thing like that?"  
"He just wanted them to go easy on me, I think, is what he said," Tavros was tearing up now, openly, "they didn't even care about the blown seal. As soon as he spoke up they forgot all about it. Lewton said he had f-forgotten his puh, place and he needed to suh, suh, set and example," Tavros bit his lip hard and looked down in shame.  
  
There was a groan from the floor and Karkat moved his arm slightly, he was too weak to get up. Kanaya stepped closer and cleared her throat quietly.  
"Equius, would you get some water please."  
"The blood," Equius repeated.  
"That hardly matters to ones such as us. If Karkat was good enough to talk to yesterday, then he remains good enough that you can assist me now. Water- please."  
Equius just stiffened and nodded. There really was nothing more to be said- the disgraced had no right to bring up the hemospectrum. He turned and went to the tiny ablution cubicle with an empty food bowl.  
"Tavros, would you please get me something I can use to clean the wounds?"  
"Uh, yes, I think, I can find something."  
"Gamzee? Sollux? Would you help me make him more comfortable?"  
  
Gamzee lifted Karkat up onto a bunk. Sollux was as surly as ever but he helped without comment. When Equius returned with icy water Kanaya carefully washed off the cuts and abrasions dotting Karkat's back while he moaned softly into a pillow. Tavros tore a bedsheet carefully into rags, which Kanaya disinfected with the harsh astringent cleanser from the ablution cubicle. As other nonadjusts came and went from the dormitory the news spread among them quickly. None of them had ever seen a redblooded mutant before, and the commentary on the event veered between gnomic statements to the effect that this explained Karkat's oddness, and shock at the cruelty of the commandant who had nearly killed the runt just to make some point of pride.  
  
Karkat would live, and would recover, but it would take time. He was not quite the same thereafter. His fear of Lewton had transmuted to a virulent anger which was hard to resit becoming infected by. He had seen the other nonadjusts rally to him and clear his wounds and protect him, and the change in him was palpable. He actually started to talk to them, slowly and shyly at first. He started to come to terms with the fact that they were not going to reject him. The scum had no ability to reject anyone even if they wanted to- their lives had been knotted together and could not be severed by will.  
  
As the _Agostine_ headed into another day of inky black nothingness Lewton strode onto the bridge to answer an urgent summons. The bridge was a large room with an arching ceiling, with a separate command deck raised above the level of the operations team below. Cabling snaked across the flooring, and the consoles were gritty and overused, with screens dulled and keyboards faded. A large series of screens across the front wall displayed various data on their operational status and heading, and dominating the front part of the bridge the helmsman stood, bound rigidly upright in a tightly buckled harness with a nestwork of electrodes permanently attached to his shaven head. The helmsman was constantly adjusting and retuning their course with psionics amplified by the ship's sensor feed and responded directly to spoken commands thanks to the enforced obedience implant common to his kind.  
  
"What is it, duty officer?" Lewton demanded irritably, taking his seat, "I don't appreciate the disturbance." He casually leafed through the scrip printout of their recent log that the DO handed him silently, detailing the sensor findings over the last hour.  
"Duty officer," said Lewton quietly, "have these entries been entered into the permanent log yet?"  
"No sir. The data is fed into log at the top of the hour, in fifteen minutes ship time."  
"I see. I want a hard copy of all of this made, and then you are to make a manual entry to override the auto-feed. For the last hour, ship proceeding as per orders, nothing to report. Am I understood?"  
"Sir."  
"Heave-to and begin the deceleration sequence immediately."  
"Sir, we will lose months if we initiat-"  
"Immediately, mister!"  
The DO didn't need his commanding officer to labour the point further. He saluted smartly and turned to lean over the rail and bark orders at the crew below.  
"Helm! Rig engines for decel-cycle, breach of C at best speed!"  
The helmsman seemed to wriggle with discomfort in his harness and bared his teeth, snapping them together sharply, but he responded.  
"Helm aye, decel in fifteen, we will breach the light barrier and return to normal space in forty-five."  
  
 _Agostine_ was old, and her engines were inefficient. They took long enough to boost her past light speed, and breaching the light barrier in the other direction to return to normal relativistic speeds took nearly as long. Lewton leaned back in his seat and examined the scrip carefully. Readings were difficult while they were above light speed- normal sensing apparatus was useless of course as electromagnetic information could not promulgate faster then light, the ship had to reconstruct what it could out of the feedback form the helmsman's psionics. There had been some kind of event, near enough to their course that they could deviate and reach it. From what he was seeing, something was sitting in the middle of empty space throwing out enough energy that it formed a bubble of static light-days across. The perceptions of the helmsman reached immense ranges when they were above light speed, but still it was on the very borders of what he could detect. It could only be another vessel, and definitely not one of Alternian make. Lewton stroked his lips and tapped his fingertips on his chin thoughtfully.  
"DO."  
"Sir."  
"We're going to need a boarding party."  
"Sir." There was an unspoken question there. The officer wanted to know which of the meagre, distinctly non-military crew Lewton intended on using.  
"Hose down some of the scum, we need scouts."  
"Sir."


	3. Chapter 3

The door to the nonadjusts' dormitory barely had time to hiss open before they were being herded out as a group, the bleak masked crewman didn't bother to single anyone out, just indicated with a gesture that he wanted everyone. Terezi reached blindly out and Kanaya took her arm, they kept closely together always. The NA's were taken down to cargo where a pile of equipment and loose plastic pressure suits had been dumped together, they were instructed simply to 'get ready.'

The _Agostine_ had been closing on the unknown signal for thirteen hours by this point, and the commandant had been sullen and withdrawn the entire time. As they finally reached close quarters the scum were addressed directly by an officer who marched out to where they were readying their pressure suits, and called for attention.

"All right scum! How are we feelin' this morning? Bright and chipper?"  
There was a vague murmur from some of them. They hadn't even realised it was morning, for them time was just a linear progression of tasks occasionally broken by rests.  
"Shut it! Suit up double quick. We are approaching now a vessel of unknown origin and our good commandant wants it investigating!"  
"I understand," said Equius quietly, "a party this large is not needed, I can-"  
"I said shut your filthy hole, scum!" The man screamed back at him, "you lot is not goin' to be investigating anything! The NA detachment will enter the vessel and spread out toward the command section and report on any security measures or dangerous environmental problems," he sneered at them wryly, "and if you live, we send in the real people to do the investigating."

He then consulted a list he was carrying and nodded to himself, before walking up to Sollux and placing a hand on his shoulder, "Not you, you get the honour of going in the second party with the commandant."

The vessel they approached was not accelerating or displaying any outward sign of activity. _Agostine_ nudged up close to her in order to deploy their docking grapple, a lengthy mechanical appendage containing a pressurized tunnel that extended out to plant against the the side of the alien. There was no standardised airlock, but the duty officer had spotted an opening consistent with a hatch that they would use to breach her. Even before they got close it was obvious to everyone on the _Agostine_ that they would not be simply cutting their way into this vessel- she was an armoured killer.

She was not as long as _Agostine_ and far more slender. She had an art about her lines and styling that was completely alien to the Alternians, used to brutalist designs and functional technology. There was a central fuselage with scalloped portions and rounded edges, and a notably wedge-shaped foresection which split under the nose like a smile of a shark. The rear of the fuselage split vertically into two long trailing vanes that continued her faintly aquatic appearance, the far edges of the vanes were lined with illuminated drive arrays, she looked like she could twist and spin through space with ease.

The scum waited at the end of the docking grapple as it was carefully levered out into space to press against her skin, then the scum were given the word to proceed. The docking tunnel was not gravitized and they floated easily "down" the tunnel, the end of which was a lit white circle. Equius took the lead and came to rest against the skin of the alien vessel, brushing his hand over it. There was a hatch, to be certain. It was outlined in red, deliberately marked out, and had unfamiliar docking clamp receptacles around it.  
"It's an airlock," Equius announced into his throat mike, "not familiar though. I think there is a control panel here, but the markings aren't in Alternian, I can't read them."  
"Can you open it?" Kanaya hovered at the rear of the party, holding on to Terezi carefully.  
"I don't see how, I don't want to risk damaging anything."  
"Here, uh," Tavros floated forwards- he relished moving around in zero-gee, "let me try?"

Equius looked at him in surprise. Their pressure suits were flexible transparent plastic with roughly tube shaped hoods that could accommodate all sizes, they could see each other clearly and Tavros was avoiding his stare. Tavros moved up close to the panel and studied it in silence for a minute.

"What's happening?" The radio crackled angrily- that was the voice of Lewton.  
"We are attempting to access the vessel," replied Equius smoothly.  
"Get on with it!"  
Karkat was looking pensive and tapped Tavros on the shoulder, "What are you doing?"  
"Just, uh, one moment."

Tavros reached out and experimentally pressed a couple of buttons, which were wide and fat to accommodate suited fingers and the rigours of space. He seemed satisfied enough because he reached below the panel and slid a small metal panel down to reveal a red twist-handle that he pulled and turned, causing the airlock door to open with a sussuration of released gas that threatened to blow them back for a moment.  
"How did you do that Tavros," asked Karkat softly.  
"I'm good with, uh, doors I suppose," Tavros drifted in aimlessly and they followed, "airlock doors are never normally opened by buttons when the clamps aren't engaged, to prevent the lock, uh,  opening accidentally if something collides with the panel. There's always a secondary control for access."  
Karkat played his light over the confines of the expansive tunnel that formed the airlock, there was only just enough room for them all, "where'd you learn that?"  
Tavros just looked at him and shook his head, pointing mutely at his throat and Karkat nodded- he didn't want to talk about it when they were miked.

There was no trouble getting in further, the controls were alien but the concepts involved were universal enough that they could understand what to do. The interior was largely white and dull cream with occasional splashes of colour, brightly illuminated and open. From the scale of doors and ceilings, whoever built the ship was roughly Alternian sized at least.  
"There's no obvious security," said Equius quietly, "no sign of life either. How are the reads?"  
Kanaya replied, "the air is oxygen\nitrogen\carbon dioxide and breathable, the pressure is within tolerances although if you open your suit quickly your ears will probably pop."  
Terezi concentrated for a moment, and squeezed Kanaya's arm, "machinery, but it's muted and slow, I think the ship is powered down."

They moved on. The powerful lamps were unnecessary, even in a low power state the ship was kept illuminated at a level that they found slightly garish. The vessel was laid out in a logical manner, with a long central corridor that connected most of the vital sections, and so they could proceed towards where they assumed the command stations would be. Their progress was tracked the entire time by radio, but the signal to the _Agostine_ became progressively weaker as they got further in. The party reached an incline in the corridor which became a ramp that split and ran upwards, leading organically into a large semicircular area containing the bridge. The layout was unusual in the extreme, each station had a semicircular niche of its own, and they surrounded a large central dais-like mound where a circle of seats surrounded an illuminated table that clearly contained a display of some sort. It brought to mind some kind of conference area, though Karkat couldn't help but imagine they were entering the great lobed brain of some fabled star beast. Every surface was soft and padded, there were no sharp corners anywhere. From the command position they had a view of a large dull brown globe that grew seamlessly from the front wall, which had a mottled, marbled surface with darker black veins running through it.

"I think it is safe," said Equius quietly, "if there was a security threat here, it would certainly not have allowed us to reach this point."  
The radio gave out a dull roar of static interspersed with Lewton's impatient voice, they gathered that he was coming aboard personally.  
Karkat went to the front of the command position and leaned on the soft padded wall that surrounded it. From here he could look down the gentle slope of the mound toward the duty positions, he could see how someone might organise a ship this way.

Lewton was coming. They heard him before they saw him, stomping up the walkway to the bridge. He was accompanied by an armed crewman and Sollux, who trudged sullenly at their side. Neither Lewton nor the guard wore pressure suits, indicating that the atmosphere had been tested quite thoroughly.  
"Out of the way scum," said Lewton breezily, "we'll take it from here."  
They stepped down uneasily from the mound, the guard following their motions with his pistol all the time.  
"Just look at it," breathed Lewton, taking in the surroundings. "It's perfect, perfect! Do you have any idea what one of these is worth intact? I don't mind telling you, scum, I'll be able to buy my way out of the service and name my own terms for this. Perhaps I'll set up a homestead on a planetoid somewhere. I might even buy you lot to keep around," he was smirking widely, obviously overwhelmed by greed and revelation. "After all, I could hardly have done it without you."  
"It won't work," said Karkat. They all stared, he had never brought himself to even look at a crewman since Lewton had him nearly beaten to death, let alone speak up, "you can't exactly fly it, and when you call in a recovery team you know exactly how much of this they'll leave for you."

Lewton slouched over to Karkat and leered down at him. Karkat did his best to try not to shrink away.  
"Well well, little Karkat Vantas, found your voice again did you? You know, that habit of speaking up when you really shouldn't has brought all of the troubles of your life on you."  
Karkat growled softly and turned his face away.  
"Surprised I know your name? Don't be. You see, I learned a long time ago that nonadjusts can be all kinds of useful. The sort of crimes that get them placed under my care often require the kind of skills I might find useful later. And that's what you are to me- useful tools. Isn't that right Sollux?"

Behind them, Sollux stiffened uncomfortably and stared at Lewton's back in pure, raw shock. Something else too- fear. None of the others had ever seen Sollux express any emotion past disdain for anything.

"You're right of course, Vantas. I cannot simply fly this vessel out of here, I barely have the crew to keep my own going let alone a second one. And besides, to make the trip home this ship requires a helmsman." Lewton sneered, he was letting it sink in for a moment, "just like helmsman Sollux Captor here."  
"No I won't!" Sollux shrieked, and leapt at Lewton's back. The guard was on him instantly and punched him in the side, drawing a strangled cry of pain and sorrow out of him.  
"I won't, will I not? Will you refuse your commandant? Ah but this is a problem that has existed since the first helmsman, has it not? Get him up!"  
Lewton rounded on Sollux, who was struggling against the guard, but he was weak and shaking with fear.

Lewton reached out and touched Sollux on the cheek, commanding his attention immediately. Sollux stared at him wide-eyed in terror and Lewton patted him gently.  
"Easy now. What is a commandant to do with a helmsman who refuses orders? Of course, the solution has been with us from time immemorial- the psionic obedience implant."  
"Pleathe,"  
"You think any one of you scum would even set one foot in my world without me knowing each and every sordid detail of your lives? You underestimate old Lewton. I'm a lot more then just a bored old freighter runner you know."  
"Thtop it, I won't,"  
"This says you will." Lewton held up a tiny control large enough to fit in his palm, and Sollux stared at it as if mesmerised.  
"Pleathe, don't."  
"Didn't think I had this, did you? Didn't think you'd see one of these again I bet. I wonder, is the life of a nonadjust really so much more comfortable then the life of a helmsman?"  
"Lewton, I'm athking you, you don't have to do thith, I'll do what you want,"  
"I know you will. I know I don't have to use this," Lewton leaned over slightly and stared deep into Sollux's eyes while the others watched on in mute horror, "I know that I don't have to do this at all to get what I want."  
He activated the control, and something went dull in Sollux's eyes. He went limp and let out a soft, childish whimper.  
"Helmsman. Activate the interface."

Sollux swivelled towards one of the recessed duty stations that surrounded the mound, and walked over to it mutely. There was a chair set before a curving bank of screens, and above the chair a head harness that descended to touch his forehead and temples with gleaming metal probes as he sat down. Almost immediately a thrum of power shuddered through the ship, and screens began lighting up. The table at the top of the mound lit too, its' surface scrolling with alien hieroglyphs and charts. At the fore of the room the great globe responded, across its' surface distinctly sharp squares of light illuminated and dimmed in simple grid patterns.  
"I knew it," breathed Lewton, "the ship knows when a helmsman is there. It wants one, she's an eager ship!"  
"What kind of a ship is this?" Karkat paled, looking around at the awakening bridge in confusion.  
"Don't you recognise the aesthetics, scum? Think back to your scholastic days, don't they teach you anything any more? Who do you think built it?"  
It was Equius who answered, he had heard about vessels with designs comparable to this one during his time in the wars, "the Horror-Terrors."  
"That's right," Lewton purred smoothly, "and now it is the property of the great Alternian empire. I will be made a saint for this."

Sollux remained at his station, silent, just staring ahead of him. If he was there with them in the room he didn't show it. The globe pulsed and flashed, and his eyes flicked up to watch it avidly, otherwise he did not move.

The scum were herded out into the main corridor, where a detachment of crewmen were methodically going through different areas to lock everything down. Lewton signalled and the men formed up near him.  
"We'll return to the _Agostine_ while the ship is warming up and prepare to transfer a communication link-up. I want this ship under complete control in an hour, so move!"

They marched along the corridor toward the exit, and Karkat was seething under his breath. He knew that this would be the last time he would ever clap eyes on this ship. This short period of time was probably the most freedom he would experience for the rest of his life. Gamzee came up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, looking concerned. Karkat just stared up at him bleakly and without hope.  
"Don't think on it brother," murmured Gamzee, "it's okay,"  
"Nothing is okay."  
"Shut up back there scum!" That was Lewton. The radio link meant they could all hear each other. At this moment, Karkat was denied even the ability to cry out against the injustice of it all, he had to stay silent and behave himself. And if he did not, then it meant nothing to Lewton. He would be executed on the spot and tossed into space, not worth thinking about again. Once again the thought hit him: there is no hope.

The crewmen were first into the tunnel. Lewton stepped back to admire his acquisition one last time. Then, over the radio, hope spoke at last.  
"Everyone," said Sollux, "hold on to thomething."

The ship lurched suddenly. Mighty engines twitched hard before the gravity compensators had been alerted and the floor lurched under them violently. Equius had been a soldier long enough to react without thinking, he snaked a hand into a depression in the wall and gripped tightly, grabbing Gamzee's ankle without hesitating to anchor him steadfastly. Karkat tumbled into Tavros and the two fell against the console opposite the airlock entrance, clinging to it and each other, while Kanaya and Terezi similarly struggled. The docking grapple sheared instantly and the communicating tube between the vessels went with it. The men inside who had been moving between vessels were killed instantly or frozen out in space, there was nothing for them. The entire corridor bellowed with the sudden blast of air escaping, Lewton had leapt for the airlock when the ship moved and was clinging to the rounded edge of the opening into it. Equius kicked off from his position without warning and stamped heavily on Lewton's arm, the commandant screamed and as the airlock began to close automatically Equius kicked him into it. Bare seconds had passed and it was over in the time it took to gasp a shocked breath.

Terezi started to wail first. "What just happened?"  
"It was Sollux!" Karkat shouted, "come on!"

They made their way to the bridge where Sollux was still staring ahead of himself coolly. The screens he was watching showed a grid pattern of local space, and the _Agostine_ was a lurid red dot slowly tumbling away from them.  
"Sollux!" Gamzee ran up to him and gently shook his shoulders, "you in there bro?"  
"Get off me you thavage," Sollux said calmly, "I _really_ need to conthentrate right now."  
There was another bass throb behind them somewhere, this time the compensators kicked in properly and they didn't feel the acceleration. They were moving.  
"Sollux, can you fly this thing?" Karkat said slowly.  
"Yeth, I think tho. I don't really underthtand the thoftware, but it'th mothtly pictorial information and the ship ith rethponding to my intentionth."  
"I thought you had an obedience implant."  
"Yeth."  
"How are you doing this?"  
"Thith ith why I never made helmthman. Thometimeth the implant doethn't take, mothtly you die if that happenth but I didn't."  
"That's incredible- we can make it!"  
"We're not away yet," said Equius sharply, "the _Agostine_ isn't well armed but we can't escape unless we can get through the light barrier and all she has to do is call in the imperial navy to shoot us to pieces."  
Tavros, behind them, whimpered softly.  
"Oh, yeth." Said Sollux with a grim little smile, "I hadn't forgotten."

Beside the _Agostine_ the alien vessel turned slowly and silently. With the care and deliberation of an artist one of the great engine vanes impacted _Agostine_ amidships as they passed and ripped straight into her. The heavy plating of the alien tore through _Agostine's_ skin like paper with minimal damage and exposed a great swathe of five full decks to space. On the bridge they clung to each other in fear as the vibrations coursed through the ship. Sollux just kept on smiling as they finished turning and he kicked in the main drives, searing the black heart of _Agostine_ into a fused inferno of vaporised metal as their engine draught ploughed into her tender innards.

"Thith ship ith thpecial," announced Sollux, "and she'th all ourth now. We're free!"  
Tavros looked around himself wildly, "what happened to the other nonadjusts? Um, we left a lot behind on there, didn't we?"  
"He killed them," said Karkat flatly with a cold stare at Sollux's dispassionate face, "all of them."  
"If thomeone had come up to me yethterday and told me each and every one of thothe fuckth could be killed, and all it took wath for me to die with them, I'd have leapt at the chanthe," Sollux replied tartly, "and tho would any of them. Tho would any of uth."  
"I wouldn't," said Karkat softly.  
"He's right," Kanaya touched Karkat's hand, "we were all dead in there even if we were still walking around and breathing. That wasn't any kind of life at all, Sollux put them out of their misery."  
"I'm not going back," said Terezi calmly, "I don't care what they do to us but I'm not going back."  
"None of us are," Kanaya embraced her, "we're getting out of here!"  
Equius strode over to where the great globe at the front of the bridge was flashing and sparkling, and staring up at it. "This is a brain, isn't it?"  
"The shipth brain, yeth."  
"What's this vessel called? If we're to crew it, then she needs a name," Equius said firmly. This mattered to him.

Above them the smooth unblemished surface of the globe lit and dimmed in sequence as a soft voice that came from everywhere all around them answered the question.  
"This vessel is now under all of your command. It is your first task to name it."  
Karkat stood up and grinned, pulling the pressure hood off and taking in his first deep lungful of air aboard his new ship.  
"Then we should call it the _Mutineer_."  



	4. Chapter 4

The _Mutineer_ swam through space away from the rolling corpse of the _Agostine_. The new crew sat together in the command section, atop what they now unanimously referred to as the mound. The central table displayed a view of local space around their position in terms of sense readings, and the crew either stood and stared pensively down at it or else lounged on the circle of couch-like seats around the table, enjoying a chance to actually relax for the first time. In Kanaya's case it was the first time she had been allowed to simply rest and do nothing in her life. She had to fight to bite back tears at every moment, and Terezi kept squeezing her hand. The other's couldn't tell, but Terezi could hear her swallowing back tears over and over.  
  
When the ship had answered them, it had been in Alternian and now every display screen was in Alternian text. The ship had simply accommodated them without complaint. The computer brain had vexed them though. It never lied to them or tried to avoid a question, but they were left knowing very little by what it did say. Karkat had insisted on interrogating the great globe of the computer brain as soon as they were under way.  
  
"What is your name?"  
"This ship is now designated the _Mutineer_."  
"I mean yourself, the entity I am speaking to now."  
"The ship's control consciousness is referred to as Sattva."  
"Where did you come from?"  
"Prior to the new command group that has taken over the functions of this vessel, navigational data is to be considered privileged information."  
"You refuse to answer?"  
"Permission is not given to answer on every subject."  
"What else can you not tell us?"  
"That is also privileged information."  
"Are we... safe here?"  
That seemed to give Sattva a moment's pause to think. "In general terms the _Mutineer_ is not safe in this zone. Eventual discovery and conflict with the Alternian space-naval forces is inevitable here. Given existential threats to the overall vessel, the crew are as safe as the vessel itself is."  
"Give it up Vantath," Sollux smirked wearily from his chair, "that'th ath good an anthwer ath you'll get. I'd very much like to know who programmed Thattva."  
  
After three hours they were all gathered around the control table, discussing how to proceed. They had pressed the engines as hard as Sollux dared before he knew more about them, and the ship was accelerating at a progressive fifteen gees, which put them by now at a minuscule but respectable percentage of light speed.  
  
"What are you even talking about," Sollux was not happy, "we're clearly going to get the fuck out of the empire and never look back!"  
"Sollux has a point," Equius chipped in quietly, "we have been extraordinarily lucky, however we cannot assume that our good fortune will last."  
"I got so many places we could hide out at, I got contacts man," that was Gamzee, "we fuckin' get the fuck out, and lay low a while, hell who knows? They'll forget about us eventually."  
Terezi said nothing, but she was listening intently.  
"I am not going back to that life," said Kanaya flatly.  
"I don't think," Tavros began, but then blushed and just shook his head.  
They all said their piece, and as one they then turned to Karkat. He was stood at the head of the table with his arms crossed, he was the only one of them who had suggested anything different.  
"No," he said. "We'll never have a better chance to strike back at them."  
There were groans. They had spent months together, they had been closer to each other then to anyone else in their respective lives, they were as a single unit, but Karkat was driving them somewhere they didn't want to go.  
"Why the fuck do we want to thtrike them," sneered Sollux, "you're talking about a fucking empire, okay? With a fucking navy. Do you want to die that badly?"  
"No, I don't want to die," said Karkat softly, "but I don't want to live in a galaxy where living thinking beings are told they are worthless and crushed by a blind machine. I don't want to turn my back on thousands, and millions, who are suffering and say that I've done enough. I don't want to live a happy life that depends on being deaf to screaming."  
They had never heard him talk like that before. It was the most that he had ever said at one time to the entire group.  
Gamzee was the first to break the silence. "Fuck,"  
"Uh, Karkat," Tavros raised a hand shyly, "are, um, are you religious?"  
They stared. Karkat gritted his teeth and tightened his folded arms a little.  
"It's a good question," said Equius, "I think it is relevant."  
"If I have beliefs," said Karkat, "that doesn't change the-"  
He was drowned out by the response. There were groans, Sollux turned away and pounded a fist into the back of the couch. Tavros looked ashamed at having caused trouble. Terezi looked a little panicked for a moment, until Kanaya put a hand on her knee. She looked at him.  
"Let's get some rest," she said diplomatically. "We don't have to decide anything straight away, and after everything that's happened we need sleep."  
As they trooped down from the mound Sollux sneered, "well we know why he'th an NA now."  
  
They explored the main corridor of the ship a little. They were all exhausted in their own ways. Not just from what they had endured that day, but from the sudden release of a pressure and tension they had been living under for months, beneath the heel of Lewton's rule. There were many staterooms and subdivisions and for once they could actually claim a space for themselves. Kanaya had never once in her live been afforded anything of her own, let alone an actual place to live to call hers. She shyly told the others that she didn't feel entirely ready to deal with that yet, and so Terezi agreed to stay with her and they took a room together. Tavros just closed his door without a word and laid down on a well appointed and relaxing bed, relishing the fact that for once he could curl up behind solid walls where no-one could get him. Gamzee just wanted somewhere to chill out and state at space, and Equius took the first room he came to and just stood there in the middle of the floor, thinking.  
  
All of their rooms were the same, the only difference being the overall shape as like the bridge the habitation quarters were rounded and organic, walls curved in at odd angles in places in order to accommodate the layout of the ship. The walls were generally a muted cream in colour, designed to pick up on the lighting colouration in the individual room which could be adjusted at will. The amenities were odd, with ablution traps and clothing receptacles in slightly different proportions to what they might expect but perfectly usable. That described the ship in general- everything seemed familiar enough to make use of, but somehow not quite right. Only Karkat forewent sleep, to explore around more fully. He couldn't bring himself to sleep, not just yet. He was furious at how he had been treated by the others, but more furious that he had just brought it on himself by- once again- opening his stupid mouth when there was no need to.  
  
Equius turned when there was a shy knock on his door, he slapped the wall panel and the door retracted with a hiss to reveal Tavros. Equius looked down in some surprise, they hadn't spent too much time together. Tavros looked uncomfortable, and didn't move until Equius invited him to come in.  
"What is it, Tavros? Are you all right?"  
"Uh, Equius? Is it true you used to be a soldier?"  
"You spoke to Gamzee? Yes, it's true I was, once."  
Tavros shifted his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. Equius sat down on the edge of his bed and waited patiently.  
"What is it, Tavros?"  
"Um, Lewton said this ship was built by, uh, the Horror-Terrors."  
"I suppose."  
"Do you think, do you think that's true?"  
Equius looked around himself slowly, and shrugged, "I've never seen the inside of one of their ships."  
"But, have you ever seen them?"  
"I've been involved in battles against them, mostly in space or high atmosphere, not on foot."  
"What do they look like, Equius?"  
"Enemies."  
  
Sollux came straight up to Gamzee without knocking or announcing himself in any way, startling him. Gamzee span when Sollux tapped his shoulder and for an instant he had a very unfamiliar expression on his face which went away as soon as it came.  
"Sol! Bro! Don't do that to a motherfucker, yeah?"  
"Shut up, thith ith important."  
"What is it?"  
"It'th Karkat. He'th nutth, I think we should think about what to do about it."  
"Don't you usually grab Tav when you need to plot and scheme and shit?"  
"I can't find him he wandered off," Sollux took a deep breath, "thith ithn't going to end well. You know what Karkat ith now, tho let'th jutht put a thtop to thith thing before it becometh a thing."  
"What are you sayin' man? Do something about it?"  
"Fuck yeth! Before he goeth nuth and we end up piththing away thith opportunity to actually get the fuck out!"  
Gamzee tilted his head to the side slightly, watching Sollux. It was uncomfortable the way he just stared. "You think he's nuts?"  
"No, Gam, I think he'th a fucking rethponthible thitizen, what do you think?"  
"Well hey there Sol," Gamzee grinned too wide, "hows this- how about you go the fuck away, and I'll sit the fuck here and think the fuck about it."  
"Uh," Sollux frowned for a moment and ran his hand over his forehead, gritting his teeth. He grunted and nodded, walking away quietly shaking his head.  
  
Gamzee turned back to the view port. It was designed to look like a window out into space, although of course there was no such blemish in the perfect hull, he was looking at a camera feed. Still, it was nice to stare out at all those miracles just floating there gleaming at him all joyously. He grinned and hugged himself.  
"Nuts nuts nuts," he chuckled.  
  
Aboard the _Mutineer_ they settled into something like a routine. Sollux spent most of his day communing with the ships' systems, preparing for the jump past the light barrier. He would have to helm them, and any flaw in his communication with Sattva could lead to disaster. Equius had been the first to discover the ships armoury. None of them carried weapons by mutual assent, but they were all aware now that, should they choose it, they could be armed. It was a weighty knowledge that changed how they viewed themselves and, to an extent, each other.  
  
Kanaya and Terezi spent most of their time together, and as the days passed the others were under no illusions that they were a couple. Despite the pain and fear that they had endured together, Terezi was actually starting to smile sometimes when they joined the others for their communal meal times. When the others saw the reserved and wounded Terezi start to engage with them a little it was heartbreaking, and even the dour Equius would shyly return her occasional grin.  
  
The great unspoken question hanging over them all related to Karkat however. None of them had brought it up, but they were all thinking about it and they all knew it was in the air. He was not like the rest of them, in a fundamental way. If anything Karkat became somewhat withdrawn again, hesitating to offer an opinion. For the first time he had announced that he was officially unavailable when he was in his quarters, which were out of the way and apart from the others. He told them that he needed time to himself as much as any of them, and his quarters were his sanctuary, and not to be disturbed. The others understood, even if they were wary of his motivations. There was no hierarchy among them, not after what they had been through, and the unspoken rule foremost among them was this- what a member needed, the group respected. For too long they had been told that they were nothing and irrelevant. The luxury of demanding something for themselves was intoxicating and wondrous too them, as was the luxury of being able to choose to respect each others' wishes. To have any respect to give to others was precious beyond words to them.  
  
They sat down together for meals. Karkat would habitually sit at the head of the table in the mess, and they let him. He would wordlessly break bread that the ship provided and hesitate silently  with his eyes closed before eating, and they always waited a moment while he did this. They all knew what he was doing, and let him in peace.  
"Sol," said Karkat quietly, and they looked up. He rarely spoke at meal times unless he was spoken to first.  
"Yeth?"  
"How far are we from the wreck of the _Agostine_ by now?"  
"A few light minuteth, I gueth."  
"We've been accelerating constantly, right?"  
"Yeth,"  
"And we've moved a few light minutes." Karkat looked around at them meaningfully, he had their attention, "you all hear that?"  
"What is it man?" Gamzee looked up from his bread and bean soup.  
"We've barely gone any way, we're still in danger and it's a matter of time before someone comes looking for the _Agostine_."  
They were quiet. Terezi reached over blindly and Kanaya took her hand.  
"Sol, how long before you think we're ready to break the light barrier?"  
"Well," Sollux chewed for a moment and thought about it, "if you want to take a couple of rithkth, then right now. If you want to be sure we thurvive then maybe another day?"  
"Then it's time to make a decision," Karkat leant forwards seriously and placed his hands on the table, "we need to get out of here, we've been acting like we're home free already. That means picking a destination no later then one day from now. And so," he paused and took a breath, working himself up to it, "and so- we need to choose a leader to make a decision on it."  
They all looked at him, and each other. "A leader?" Said Equius, slowly.  
"That's right. We can't argue over every detail, we need someone in authority."  
"Who?"  
"We take a vote. Anyone who wants the job should tell the rest why they should have it, and then we all write down who we want. Whoever gets the most votes is leader. Fair?"  
He looked around the table slowly, but it was obvious that they were on board, a few of them were nodding. Tavros looked nervous, but he always did. Equius just smiled.  
  
They spent the next day on the mound, taking turns to speak. Each person who wanted to be in for election stood and said a few words, the others watched grimly. They had never thought that they would get a chance to choose any part of their destiny, and this was a cathartic experience for the group. First was Equius.  
  
"I am an ex-soldier, I have combat experience and leadership experience. I have successfully negotiated a number of campaigns under heavy enemy activity. I have the skills required to lead us to safety."  
  
He was staring rigidly ahead, and as he spoke he began to notice the others were looking nervously to one another. He was the best of them, he knew it deep down, yet he couldn't make them see it. He coughed nervously and mentioned some of the worlds that he had been deployed on. More blank stares. In the end, he just nodded smartly, and sat down. He ran a hand through his hair and absently wiped it on his shirt. He had never been so good with people. Tavros stood up, unexpectedly.  
  
"Uhm," he tapped a foot nervously, the mechanism picking up cross signals and working over and over, "I didn't want," he coughed and started again. "I don't think I'd be so great a leader really, uh, Karkat said I should be confident and say what's in my heart, uh, and talk to you all but." He looked down and shrugged, "well, thank you for listening."  
He sat down again next to Sollux who looked at him askance and muttered, "well that wath fuckin weird."  
  
"Anyone else?" Karkat looked around. Gamzee just shrugged and muttered that he couldn't give a shit. Kanaya shook her head.  
"No Karkat, I have lived my whole life as an NA," she murmured, "I'm not ready to think past my own four walls yet."  
"Terezi?"  
"No," she shook her head violently and Kanaya stroked her hair, "no."  
"Sollux?"  
"Fuck you," Sollux snarled, "get a new helmthman, then I'll do it. Otherwithe I have too much of my own shit to think about."  
"Well," said Karkat, standing up, "I have something to say too."  
  
"If you make me your leader I'll protect you with everything I've got. You don't all like me very much, I know that. But we need someone. There has to be someone. Choose whoever you like but we have to choose right now, today, and stick to it. You've all talked to me in private, I think you know me pretty well, so I'm not going to go over what I'm like here now."  
Sollux snorted but he continued.  
"I have a plan. I'm not going to let the empire get away with what they did to us. If you're not with me, I won't force you. But if you are with me, then we're going to do something about it. I don't know what yet, exactly. But something."  
The voting was over quickly. They all retired to a quiet corner alone, except for Terezi who had Kanaya write for her. They all came back together, and the votes were read out.  
  
Karkat walked into his quarters and closed the door behind him thoughtfully. He stepped into the dim room, it was lit only by the viewing window showing space, which cast a dull grey-blue light over everything. He went to it and stared for a time.  
"Seven votes in total. One for Equius, the rest for me," he could barely believe it even as he was saying it. "It was all fair, no one complained about it. I'm the leader now." He turned, "how did you know?"  
  
From behind him a shadow detached from the darker corner and shuffled slowly into the weak pool of light and a voice spoke.  
"Who else were they going to vote for? They might have elected Sollux, but he could never lead while he's plugged into the system. Did you make sure Tavros stood up? Good. No chance. Equius might have done it, but that's a risk we had to take."  
"I didn't think they'd vote for me."  
"I told you, they had no real choice at all," Lewton smiled, "now, we have a lot to do."


	5. Chapter 5

Before, when the others had been resting, and establishing the quarters they wanted to take, Karkat had been exploring. He had walked off in anger, and wanted to take some time to cool off before he might run into one of the others again. He had a vicious temper but his long and punishing time as a nonadjust had taught him to bite it back, say nothing wherever possible, and never reveal his crimes. He had broken his rules, and now they knew about his religious leanings the would never trust him. Why would they? He would end up an outcast among the outcasts, if that was possible.

That was when he had come to the airlock. He paused a moment, and remembered. He was sure, when the cargo grapple had sheared away, just for a moment he had heard crewmen screaming. It was unlikely, if not impossible, but he couldn't shake the thought. He passed a small window set high in the airlock door, and that was when he'd seen Lewton.

The lock doors had slid closed automatically on decompression, and when Equius had kicked Lewton into the airlock he had collided with the far corner and somehow he had clung on long enough that the outer door had sealed safely. He was in a bad way when Karkat found him, crumpled up in the corner nursing a broken arm courtesy of Equius. Karkat had opened the airlock door, and the two of them had just stared at each other for a long moment. Then Karkat moved.

In Karkat's quarters he finished explaining what had happened to Lewton. The commandant was still nursing the arm, which Karkat had bound up as well as he was able, and treated with an emergency kit. The commandant went to the slim desk against one wall and sat down. Karkat warily sat on the edge of the bed, watching him carefully.  
"You did well Vantas. Now they will have to work together, under our guidance."  
"My guidance. I'm not working with you."  
"Kill me, then."  
Karkat flinched, Lewton kept throwing that back at him. Karkat hadn't been able to bring himself to flush the commandant out into space when he had the chance, and he couldn't turn him over to the others now.  
"Just remember you're a prisoner, Lewton."  
"Ah-h-h Karkat," Lewton swivelled the chair and regarded him. "Think clearly. We both have something to offer the other. I've only just started to help you- do you think you stand the slightest chance of escaping the empire without my help? You need what I know. And all I ask is to leave quietly when we reach a suitable planet. I don't want to hurt you Karkat, there's enough booty here for me to take a moderate share and leave you in peace and comfort for the rest of your lives."  
"I don't believe you."  
"Then kill me."  
Karkat narrowed his eyes and his jaw clenched.  
"Come on Vantas, look around you. That pillowcase would make a good choking garotte, that chair leg could stove in a skull. What damage could you do with your claws and teeth? What's holding you back?"  
Karkat looked away to the view port, "you wouldn't understand."

Lewton pulled himself to his feet with a grunt and stepped closer, Karkat was sure he had been hurt worse then he had been letting on these last days.  
"I don't believe in giving something for nothing Vantas, but here's a free little piece of information for you to chew on. I know a lot more about you nonadjusts then you think. I actually took the time to read through all of your files before you came aboard my ship."  
"Why?"  
"In case there was anything I could use, of course."  
"Of course."  
"And in your case, most interesting. I didn't think the sufferer cult had too many adherents left these days."  
Karkat flushed.  
"That's why you can't kill me, isn't it. It's one of your pathetic little commandments? Tell me Vantas, do you respect all life so tenderly, or am I just special?"  
"You're pretty fucking sure of yourself Lewton. Don't play on my beliefs too much, the others wouldn't hesitate to end you in an instant if they found out you were here."  
"You'd tell them?"  
"I might, if you made me."  
"Tell them what? That you saved the life of the man who tormented them all this time? Their torturer? Will you tell them how you betrayed them for their own good?"  
Karkat gnashed his teeth and growled.

Lewton reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was an oddly understanding gesture, and Karkat froze and looked at him.  
"Tell me Vantas, you remember the nonadjust I killed in front of you all, that first day?"  
"Of course,"  
"I bet you all learned a whole new lesson in fear that day."  
"What does this have to do with anything."  
"I told you all that his life meant nothing to me. Did you know that he used to be a heavy petrochemical filtration expert? He had friends who wrote to him after he was made a nonadjust. He had a matesprit."  
"You're a monster."  
"And he was a thief. He took the platinum lining of a catalytic filter from the air supply system. He was going to to hide it, sell it later maybe. He knew what those are worth."  
"So? After what you did-"  
"And because the filter was missing, an entire section willed with noxious gas. He also disabled the sensor that was meant to alert the operators that a filter wasn't functioning. A crewman was put into a coma, and I came to visit him every night until he died. I wrote the letter to that man's matesprit telling what happened."  
Karkat fell silent.  
"I didn't kill that man because he was a random thief. I did it because his thoughtlessness killed a man, and aboard a ship even a moment's thoughtlessness can be the death of everyone. That is how a captain has to think. And if you are going to survive for any length of time, Karkat Vantas, that is how you are going to have to think."  
"I'm not going to be anything like you."  
"That's why you need me, Vantas. That's why you need me."

Lewton leaned over and, to Karkat's horror, pressed a brief kiss to his forehead. It was an act without motivation or meaning, another part of the communication between them. A seal between the two. Whatever the outcome, Karkat knew that he had made a choice in saving Lewton's life that he now bore responsibility for. He was going to have to live with it.  
"I'm still keeping you locked in here."  
"I wouldn't have it any other way."

The _Mutineer_ was ready. Sollux in communion with Sattva advised them that they were ready to attempt to breach the light barrier at their convenience. The crew gathered on the mound to discuss their options. Karkat was now their leader, and when he stood up the others looked to him. Even though they didn't necessarily trust him, his words now carried a weight that he was not used to.  
"Well. We're ready to go," Karkat swallowed. He was holding his hands behind his back to stop them shaking.  
"That'th right, mighty leader. Tho, where to?" Sollux sneered derisively.  
"We have to take this in stages. We don't fully understand the capabilities of this ship yet, so we will take a short journey first."  
"You have decided where we are going?" Kanaya looked up at him. It was, and wasn't, a question all at the same time. She had a way of saying two things at once when she wanted to.  
"Yes. We'll set a course for Aminer first."  
"Are you fucking thtupid?" Sollux was already up and had his fists on the table.  
"What the fuck?" Gamzee kicked himself to a sitting position, "what's the big fuckin' deal there?"  
"Aminer," said Equius slowly, "was the next destination of the _Agostine_ before the... incident."  
They all looked incredulously at Karkat. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, remembering what Lewton had told him.  
"Aminer. It's a shitty little frontier world with a tiny garrison. Right now the _Agostine_ is behind on several routine communication checks and they will be assuming that something has happened, that means what few ships they have currently are under way to the position the _Agostine_ is meant to be at by now, which is nowhere near us. If we run on minimal power and an evasive course we can pass them by undetected and there will be no threat present when we arrive. We'll know what this ship can do then, and be in a position to choose our next move. And if there's a problem, we can abandon her and take our chances slipping down onto the planet in pods."

Silence. They all chewed this over. Crazy as it sounded, that was actually a very sound plan. Even Equius had nothing to say about it, and he was still chafing at being passed over for command. If they travelled to some empty point in space and their engines failed they were dead, this way they would at least have a nearby destination if the worst happened and Karkat seemed to be certain how the local authorities would have reacted to the missing _Agostine_.

"Tho we head for Aminer, and if everything checkth out then we get the fuck away?"  
"Yes." Karkat nodded. And, he thought, maybe he could quietly get rid of Lewton somehow.  
"Huh. That could work."  
"Any more questions?" Karkat turned away, just like Lewton had told him. Ask them if they have a problem, and then act like they don't. He hated himself for listening to the commandant, but he had to admit that they were barely a crew at all and their survival would mean dealing with what came as a unit and not descending into discussion and bickering.

The engine vanes of _Mutineer_ shifted position and their trailing edges began to glow with energy as the ship increased acceleration. Sattva pulsed and flickered before the command mound and the voice came again from hidden sources all around them.  
"The preparations are complete. The _Mutineer_ can breach light speed on command."  
Sollux jumped nimbly over the edge of the mound and slid down the short incline to jump into his helmsman's chair which accepted him smoothly. As the electrodes delicately brushed his temples the surface of Sattva's globe flickered and glowed.  
"Helming data received, readiness."  
"Acthelerate," Sollux whispered. The ship strained and engine units throbbed somewhere in her belly.

As soon as the _Mutineer_ passed through the light barrier all of the sensor screens went black, conventional data was useless. From that moment Sollux felt his mind expanding outwards at a terrifying pace, the panoply of space was exposed to him. Through his psionic senses Sattva was able to guide them expertly at transluminal speeds. Sollux felt the raw power of the _Mutineer_ given just a little reign, and he was shocked. He had never worked with a military vessel, and certainly never a Horror-Terror one, he wondered if it was always like this. The acceleration was incredible, they were moving at a rate he would have thought impossible in any conventional civilian ship.

His perceptions were widened, too. He could already see ships streaking across space toward a point on a path intersecting the journey of the _Agostine_. He was aware of them, but he kept to a wide berth, unwilling to attract attention. He was not truly steering the ship, Sattva picked up on his intentions and translated these into active commands just as it compiled and represented the sense-data back to Sollux in a way that could be understood clearly.  
"It's a clear run," he announced, "everything theemth normal."  
"This is correct," agreed Sattva.

On the mound the others clustered around the central table and studied the display, where Sattva presented the local area as well as possible from the feedback it received from Sollux.  
"Well then," said Karkat, "I think we actually have a fully functional war ship at our disposal."  
"Is this where you decide that we're going to invade the empire?" Equius was openly challenging.  
"This isn't war," chided Karkat, "I don't know what it is yet. But the empire relies on fear, that's all that keeps the slaves in line," Karkat suddenly remembered a pitiful NA being shot by Lewton and continued, "so when people see that not everyone is afraid of the empire, maybe things will change."  
"Karkat," Kanaya reached over for his hand, "what makes you think people can just change?"  
"I," he swallowed, "I have faith."


	6. Chapter 6

The ship dropped out of transluminal flight gradually, and as it re-entered the normal constraints of space it shed additional energy in a spray of light perpendicular to the axis of their direction of travel. As the Cherenkov radiation flickered and died, limning the hull in blue, the _Mutineer_ swiftly decelerated and Sattva announced that they had arrived at their given destination. The crew clustered around the control table on the mound as conventional sensors came back on-line.

Karkat tapped a finger on the glowing display, "There. Aminer."  
"Sattva," called Kanaya, "Is the ship undamaged?"  
"Yes, Kanaya,"  
"And were there any unexpected problems or issues during the flight?"  
"No, Kanaya,"  
"Well then leader," she looked directly at Karkat, "we made it, we know the ship can perform admirably, there is no reason to stay. We should immediately take a course out of the empire at best speed, I think."  
"One moment," Karkat was looking intently at the display.  
"Karkat, what are you looking at?"  
"One moment!" He hissed. The others shared concerned looks.

Lewton had been right. The planet had a minuscule garrison, and all of the available vessels had gone to search for the stricken _Agostine_. The planet lay plump and vulnerable beneath them, helpless. He looked up at last.  
"What do you all know about Aminer?"  
"Uhm, mining planet," said Tavros softly, "that's, that's pretty much it. I think."  
"Nothing else?"  
"Light industry world with exports in finished metals and alloys, mostly ferrites with some heavy metals," said Terezi softly without moving, "the world has an export-only license with strict limitations on travel."  
Karkat stared at her in surprise, then realised with a start she would have no idea he was doing so, "Terezi, how did you know all that?"  
"I was with the legislacerators, we had to know the empire."  
"Well then, you know what's orbiting Aminer."  
Terezi furrowed her brow for a moment, "orbiting refinery platform,"  
"Yeah. A little piece of nightmare floating right there. It's full of robots, machinery, and nonadjusts working the refinery. Some of us might have ended up there maybe."  
Terezi looked confused and shook her head, Kanaya put an arm around her and spoke, "what are you saying, Karkat?"  
"The whole economy of the planet goes through that platform. I say we attack it."

They stared at him.

"That's fucking insane," said Equius.  
"I like it man," said Gamzee.  
"Why, but uh why would we even do that?" Asked Tavros.  
"I'm not suggesting we destroy it," said Karkat, raising his voice over the mounting hubbub, "just damage it. Put it out of action for a while."  
They looked unconvinced.  
"It's like this," Karkat increased the view on the planet, displaying the pictographs representing orbiting bodies including the platform, "the whole planet will be knocked out of the empire while they're repairing the damage. Every single person down there will see all at once, that someone's not afraid of the empire."  
"What are you hoping to achieve," said Equius slowly.  
"Just that. Show them that..." He swallowed, "someone isn't afraid. Just let them see that, one time. That's all I ask. Look, we'll be gone before they know what happened, and that's it." He raised his voice, he was dangerously close to cracking, "just give me this! Let me have one tiny- one little fucking victory! Just for one second let's act like we haven't been fucking crushed down and broken all our miserable lives!"

They thought on that. His words sank in and they looked at each other. In the end, and unexpectedly to Karkat, he had an ally in Equius.  
"I think he's right. We will be gone soon, they will never find us. Before we go, we could leave them something to think about," he grinned, they hadn't seen him do that before, "like Vantas said. Just this once."

The _Mutineer_ swung around the inner system, still shedding speed but approaching to a light-minute of the planet quickly. Sollux had been strangely quiet since they arrived, and he only spoke to tell them as they approached the world and it's orbiting platform.  
"Tho then," he said, "how are we going to attack it anyway?"  
"This ship has weapons," said Karkat with a grin, "doesn't it, Sattva?"  
"Yes, Karkat," said Sattva, "what are... your intentions."

Karkat frowned. In the short time they had been travelling they had found that sometimes Sattva would pause slightly when addressing them, and they had come to recognise the quality of it. That pause meant that the ship brain was picking it's words very carefully, they found that it usually happened when Sattva was answering their questions in a way that was factually accurate but not helpful.

"We will strafe the station and fire on their heat radiator array, that'll damage it enough that it's knocked out of action while they shut everything down for repairs, but it won't throw the station out of orbit. They will have plenty of time to evacuate." Karkat looked up at them all.  
"Aw-right," Gamzee shifted position and scratched his belly boredly, "let's do it. Fuckin' raise the roof on a mother fucker. I feel like seein' somethin' burn for all they did to us."

Sattva lit up the weapons display, it was contained in a niche at the base of the mound similar to the one in which Sollux sat in his unusual silence. Equius went there and looked over the various screens. Even thought he weaponry was unfamiliar the principles were not, and the controls were now all displayed in Alternian.  
"I believe we have significant firepower," he announced, "Sollux, can you swing us past the platform while vectoring the nose toward it?"  
"Of courth," he replied quickly. Karkat looked over curiously, Sollux didn't usually snap like that when he could be sarcastic instead.

The _Mutineer_ streaked through space, accelerating steadily. Sollux cut the engines and the great wedge-nose of the ship tilted towards the platform smoothly. As they slid past, in an electric hail of frantic radio messages demanding identification, the black mouth-like slit across the front of the nose lit up for a moment as the energies of the ship were released in a storm of rage. The orbiting platform was roughly tubular, with enormous red-glowing carbon fins spreading out from the midsection, where excess heat was radiated into space. Part of the heat radiating array split apart and burst instantly under the concentrated fire, floating away from the station.

They were away before there was any chance to stop them, even if there had been ship present capable of doing so. Within the station itself chaos reigned instantly. The orbiter was a mass of machinery working constantly to prepare and package ores and ingots of finished metals ready for transport, and the excess heat was tremendous. Without the heat radiating array that heat had nowhere to go in the smothering insulating vacuum of space and the station began to overheat rapidly. The _Mutineer_ powered up and returned to transluminal accelerations, speeding out of the system within the hour.

"You fuckin' see that?" Gamzee smirked, "no fuckin' chance. They was fucked!"  
"You're a sadist," said Karkat flatly, "shut up. We just disabled them, it's an important symbolic gesture."  
"Sollux?" Tavros awkwardly clambered over the edge of the command recess and slid down the mound.  
"Fuck no, brother! I jus' like to see justice done, is what is is!"  
"Justice? There's plenty more worlds just like that one, where people are being enslaved right now."  
"Wait," said Terezi, "you said that was the end of it,"  
Karkat shrugged.  
"Sollux?" Tavros stumped up to the helmsman's circular recess and touched his shoulder.  
Sattva spoke up, the calm voice surrounding them like a blanket. "Sense data is fragmenting, we must leave transluminal flight."  
"Uhm, guys?" Tavros was shaking Sollux.  
Karkat leaned over the lip of the mound, "What's happening down there?"  
"Uh, I think, he's, um, he's bleeding."  
Sollux coughed, and his helmsman's screen was flecked with blood.

They hung in space, vulnerable. The engines were accelerating them at a constant rate which was bringing them to a respectable percentage of light-speed, but without a helmsman to take them transluminal they were practically sitting still. The _Mutineer_ had medical facilities, but like the rest of the vessel they had been designed by and for the Horror-Terrors, with an alien biology in mind. The medical wing was brightly lit, painfully so to their eyes, and after laying Sollux on one of the four beds provided the illumination was lowered to a comfortable twilight. He was bleeding from his nose and mouth, profusely, and none of them knew what to do. They had all clustered around him in silence, and when Sollux finally opened his eyes and looked up at them he saw in their expressions what they were all thinking. He just turned his head and closed his eyes again, he didn't speak to them.

Karkat gritted his teeth and balled his fists, "I have to go,"  
"Where are you going?" Kanaya glared at him.  
"I won't be long. I have to- think about what to do. I need a moment."  
"Are you coming back?"  
He was already at the door, "of course! Just keep him comfortable!"

Karkat went directly to his quarters, he had nowhere else to go. He shut and sealed the door behind him. Lewton was there, sitting up on his desk and eating an apple. He had one leg up on the desk and the other dangled merrily, he actually looked pleased with himself.  
"What are you fucking smiling about?" Karkat hissed.  
"I heard the ship power up to unload weaponry before,"  
"That's right,"  
"And you know, a thought occurred to me,"  
"Enlighten me."  
Lewton cackled and swung down from the desk. Karkat noted with some alarm that he wasn't looking nearly as weak as he had done yesterday, "well, captain Vantas, it occurred to me that if we get into some kind of a battle here, the outcome is entirely not my responsibility."  
Karkat stared blankly, "so?"  
"You can't understand. I've been aboard ships all of my adult life, I've captained three separate ships in my time, and they weren't all miserable barges like the _Agostine_ I can tell you. And this is the first time in, oh I don't know how long, that I've not had to worry about what happens next. Can you imagine how incredibly liberating it is to not feel responsible for the people around me."  
"Actually," Karkat sighed, "I think I can imagine."  
Lewton tossed the remains of the apple into a waste receptacle contemptuously, "Oho! It would appear that the crown weighs heavily upon the noble brow!" He sidled closer and patted Karkat on the shoulder, "not so simple, is it? You take a ship, you get a crew, you think that's all there is to it?"  
"I have a problem."  
"Let me guess. Something entirely unexpected has come up which threatens the entire crew."  
"How did you guess?"  
"Oh, Vantas! Welcome to my world boy, welcome to my world! Did you know, in the last day before the incident that sadly ended my last command, there were three separate systems failures which could have destroyed the entire ship! This is how your days are going to be, now."  
"You're enjoying this."  
"Damn right I am! For once I can actually sit back and relax a little, and all of the thousand problems a captain has to deal with at once are someone else's problem."  
"Look, I need your help."  
"I told you that you needed my help last time we spoke, you didn't believe me then."  
"I need it now."  
Lewton gave him a chilly grin and casually stroked the curl of a finger along Karkat's cheek. "Then ask me. Nicely."  
Karkat closed his eyes and shuddered, "I need your help. Please."  
Lewton nodded and sat down on the bed, folding his arms grimly. "All right. Tell me everything that has happened, and leave out no details."

Karkat had no choice. He told Lewton everything, and Lewton had a way of fixating on details that Karkat was trying not to focus on, asking piercing questions and demanding every answer in detail. He especially questioned the odd behaviour Sollux had shown, and under his relentless questioning Karkat began to see that indeed Sollux had been behaving in a way that seemed inconsistent and odd ever since they had taken over the ship.  
"Do you have any quinteprine?"  
"What's that?"  
"It's a drug used to lower blood pressure, it's often given to helmsmen when they get like this."  
"I never heard of it."  
Lewton sighed, "Sattva!"  
"Lewton," replied the ship.  
Karkat started. He hadn't known that Lewton was aware of the ship's personality.  
"Is there any quinteprine aboard?"  
"That term is unfamiliar to me."  
Lewton walked to the desk and brought up the display, "I believe I can describe the formula to you Sattva, the drug is formed of two benzine rings joined by a phosphate sugar, bring up a molecular diagram."  
Lewton worked with Sattva, drawing onto the screen with his fingers, describing what he could remember of the structure of quinteprine.  
"The formula you describe bears a significant similarity to a drug in the medical stores of the vessel," announced Sattva.  
"How similar?"  
"There is a four-point-five sigma certainty."  
Lewton shrugged. "I'd say we have little choice. Administer a three cc ampoule of this into a vein."  
Karkat looked at the screen. A named drug with a code number was being displayed. The medical wing contained a full inventory of drugs and equipment which could be called up at the dispensary by entering the relevant numerical codes.  
"What will it do?" He asked.  
"Maybe nothing. But, if this is quinteprine, it will still the symptoms and allow him to recover. There will be no side effects as long as you don't overdose him."  
"How do you know all this?"  
Lewton clasped him by the shoulders and grinned, "lesson one, my boy. If you want to run a crew you have to know the crew. And with your helmsman, that goes double. Any captain worth his salt knows exactly what his helmsman needs and can tolerate, never trust it to your medical officer always oversee the helmsman yourself."  
Karkat grimaced, "if this doesn't work..."  
"If Sollux dies, then we are adrift in space with no hope. I have as much at stake here as you- trust me."  
"How can I ever trust you?"  
"You're the captain now. The captain always finds a way."

Karkat stormed into the medical wing and yelled, "out of the way! Everyone fucking out, I know what to do!"  
"What now," Equius stood in his way, "we've had enough of this nonsense now,"  
"I said out of the fucking way! Back to your posts! Until Sollux is back on his feet we're adrift in space, I want to know it the moment anything even sniffs at us, damn it!"  
"Wait, what are you going to do?"  
"Are you giving me this bullshit now? Right now when we're most vulnerable, this is the moment that you think you shouldn't in fact be stood at the weapons station keeping a good fucking look out, Equius? Is that what this is?"  
"I didn't mean-"  
"Move! Fuck shit! On your fucking toes and move! And that goes double for the rest of you, now!"

They piled out of the room hurriedly. Only Tavros remained, he placed a hand on Sollux's arm and shook his head fearfully. Of all of them, Karkat felt that Tavros was the only one he would never get to leave, but he could live with that. He ran to the dispensary and hammered the buttons, entering the code from memory.  
"Tavros, whatever happens here, I need you to just keep your damn mouth shut okay?"  
"Um, I think,"  
"Tav! Just fucking- I'm going to save him, if I can, okay? I need you to just let me do that and keep quiet."  
"I will,"

Karkat pulled an ampoule and an injector gun from the dispensary and loaded it. He approached Sollux and turned his arm so that his palm was upwards, and pressed the blunt nib of the gun to the hollow of his elbow, pulling the trigger. The injector gun automatically sought out a vein and pressed a needle into it expertly, delivering the drug. Then, they could only wait. They stood around his bed in silence, occasionally wiping the blood from his face or checking the incomprehensible readouts of the computers monitoring him. He did seem to be calmer, though, and the bleeding diminished.  
"I think he's, uh, well he's looking better I think," said Tavros.  
"Yes."  
"You saved his life?"  
"I dunno. Maybe."  
"How did you do that?"  
"I talked to Sattva and figured out what drug to give him, that's all."  
"You're smart,"  
"Thanks."  
"I know the others, uh, they aren't so happy sometimes, but I'm glad. I mean I'm glad you're the one in charge, I think."  
"Thanks, Tavros."  
"I never really wanted to win the vote, I only stood up because you said I should."  
"I know,"  
"I think it gave me some confidence, though. I mean, I know I lost the vote, but it was nice that, uh, people were listening to me."  
"I see."  
"I guess no one ever listens to me. I mean, Sollux does, sometimes."  
Karkat looked up at him, looking at him properly for the first time. "I think you're worth listening to Tavros. I'm sorry if I've not paid much attention to you."  
"It's all right, I mean you have more important things to worry about."

Sollux cracked his eyes open and croaked. They helped him have a sip or two of water. He was so weak he could barely move, but he was alive and he seemed to be gaining strength by the moment. While they fed him droplets of water carefully they knew that he would live.  
"Fuck, I feel tho fucking wrecked," he muttered.  
"Just relax," said Karkat, "you're okay now."  
"What happened?"  
"You blacked out I think," said Tavros softly, "when you started to bleed."  
"I thee. Lithen, Tav,"  
"Yes?"  
"I need to thpeak to Karkat jutht for a moment, alone. Pleathe?"  
Tavros couldn't help but look hurt. He nodded silently and left before they could say anything. Karkat wanted to chide Sollux for sending him away, but Sollux grabbed his hand so tightly, Karkat knew it was important.  
"Did I thay anything, while I wath out?"  
"No, nothing. Sol, what happened to you?"  
Sollux sighed and laid his head back, staring up. "It'th the obedienthe implant."  
"What?"  
"We all get them. If you have thionic abilitieth, you get implanted, that'th the law. You know what the implant doeth?"  
"Not really,"  
"It readth your mind. It knowth what you're thinking about. The idea ith, whenever you rethieve a direct order, it maketh you _want_ to obey it. The implant doethn't forthe you to do anything, it jutht maketh you feel okay about doing what you're told alwayth."  
"That's horrible."  
"Yeth."  
"You said yours didn't take, though."  
"It'th not tho thimple. The implant ith part of my mind, and I thpent yearth- yearth! Trying to figure it out. Finally, I found a way in, Karkat. I found a way into it. I broke in and reprogrammed it from the inthide out."  
"You can do that?"  
"I think I'm the only one who ever managed it. But I couldn't dithable it, all I could do is re-route the output pathwayth. Inthtead of forthing obedienthe, mine jutht thendth a ranom thtream of data straight into my nervouth thythtem."  
"What's that like?"  
"It'th like pain. Pain that never thtops, whenever the implant ith working on me."  
"You mean whenever someone gives you an order?"  
"Yeth. It hurtth. Oh, it hurtth tho fucking much, I can't even... I'm going to go mad and die from it I think. That'th why I wath kicked off the programme."  
"It's been happening since your implant was activated?"  
Sollux shook his head sorrowfully, tears were running down his cheeks openly, "Yeth. It'th on. It can't be dithactivated without a control devithe."  
"That's why you hate talking to people. Oh Sol, why didn't you tell us?"  
"Oh thure, why not tell everyone I know that they can hurt me jutht by telling me what to do, huh?"  
"I guess."  
"Lithen. Tavroth is the only one. I can... I can handle being around him. He'th the only one who never onthe told me what to do."  
"Why don't you tell him then?"  
"No, he'd never... it wouldn't... he wouldn't handle it well if he knew, I think."  
"I won't say anything then. Sol, what do you need from me? How can I help you?"  
"You think you can put me out of my mithery and kill me?"  
"No- no I could never,"  
"Then you can't help me. I know I have to helm the ship, there'th no choithe in it. I wanted thomeone to know, at leathte."  
"I get it. I'll protect you all I can."  
Sollux nodded sharply, Karkat could see it in the way his jaw muscles bunched, the pain was still in him. Karkat left and called to Tavros, who was waiting pensively outside.  
"Tav,"  
"Is he-"  
"He's fine. He just had to tell me some helmsman stuff, about the ship's position, that's all. Would you stay with him? I think he could really use you now."  
"When, when he sent me away-"  
"He just felt bad for you seeing him that way. But he needs you now, go on in and be with him, okay?"  
"Yes, yes I will!"

Karkat met the others on the mound, they had obviously been talking seriously. He nodded to them and stood up at the head of the table.  
"Sollux will be fine, we've sorted it out."  
"How?" Equius looked upset.  
"Sattva was able to give us a drug that helped him, Sollux will be fine and there's no problem. A bit of rest and he'll be back in action."  
"I see. Well done."  
"So. While I've been sorting out Sollux, what's the report?"  
"What?"  
Karkat relished the moment, despite himself, he had been waiting for this. "I told you to keep watch while I saw to Sollux. So, while I have been away leaving you in charge of keeping us safe, Equius, what do you have to report?"  
"I- we have been talking-"  
"Have you been at your post?"  
"Well, it's not-"  
"Have you abandoned the one simple fucking order I gave you, while I was working to save the life of our helmsman? Is that what you're fucking telling me?"

The others were watching. Equius glanced around but they didn't offer any way out. Gamzee looked like he was enjoying the situation, Terezi was quiet- as always- and Kanaya was only concerned with looking after her.

"Equius," said Karkat smoothly, "have you been at your station at all?"  
"I... I have not."  
"Are we, at this moment, surrounded by incoming attack craft? Have you any way of knowing?"  
"I- no, I do not."  
"I get it, Equius. You thought it was a better use of your time to talk about how you think someone else should be in control here, huh?"  
"It's not like that!"  
"Totally fuckin' is," murmured Gamzee, "you nailed it brother,"  
Karkat stared at Equius, "Get the fuck back to your station, and do the fuck your job, Equius. And next time you think someone else should be in control here, you better come up with someone better fucking capable of the job then fucking you!"

Equius was silent, he was beaten and he knew it. He resumed his station and duly reported that there was no danger at present. They all knew that Karkat had achieved something. He had said he would take care of Sollux, and so he had. He had given them orders and they had been the right orders to give. Despite their divergent viewpoints, the others were starting to wonder if there really was anyone better to lead them at that time. Karkat was unable to enjoy the moment of victory however. He had a helmsman with a terrible secret, and on top of that he had a secret of his own to watch out for. He knew deep in his gut that he could never trust Lewton, but he knew equally well that he absolutely needed Lewton.  



End file.
